but I've got to be honest I wouldn't have. Dossena, Gerrard, Torres and Babel were practically enforced changes so no problem. Particularly given the fact that I think by far the best way to approach these froup games is to put your strongest team out in the first few matches, qualify, then if you want to have a little "styling" do it when it doesn't matter later on. At least that way, the season is more than two weeks old and the players have actually had a chance to get tired before we start "resting" them. It also avoids the annual scramble where we have to win our last couple of matches in order to qualify, and in order to do so need to play Lee Peltier in the Away game at Stoke.
The one selection I couldn't get on with was Lucas. I like him as a player, but why play him here when we have already made four changes? Alonso and Masherano did well against Man Utd, so another game here to build would have made sense to me.
Lastly, I can't actually see the game so appreciate the comments from all. If I could just ask one thing tho, could people refrrain from saying "did you fecking see that Fo Dne" each time Babel does something properly? People take a stance on a player which is fair enough, but while the assessment is ongoing it doesn't alter from minute to minute during each match. It will get a bit boring if it carries over into every thread. Leave it till the end of the season or the babel thread itself, then everyone can see if they were right or not.
Anyways, all that said nice to see we are winning. Hopefully we can keep it up and we'll be as good as qualified again before too much longer. Then we can concentrate on the real league. It won't be long until we are all sitting around wondering who we will draw this year out of any six or seven of Barcelona/Bayern Munich/Real Madrid/Juventus/Milan/Arsenal/Chelsea/Man Utd plus one other surprise team (which is normally Porto or Benfica, not that surprisign really) in the quarters. Win three ties from there and we'll have old big ears in the cabinet again.
by